Why did Judas betray Jesus?

The short answer

The Gospels give more than one answer. Matthew shows Judas asking the chief priests what they will pay. John calls him a thief. Luke says Satan entered him. Matthew also says that afterward Judas was sorry and tried to give the money back.

What the record says

Matthew tells it as a bargain:

Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver him to you?” So they weighed out for him thirty pieces of silver. From that time he sought opportunity to betray him.

Matthew 26:14-16

John tells of a dinner where Mary poured costly ointment on Jesus’s feet, and Judas asked why it was not sold and the money given to the poor (John 12:5). John adds:

Now he said this, not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and having the money box, used to steal what was put into it.

John 12:6

Luke gives a different cause:

Satan entered into Judas, who was also called Iscariot, who was counted with the twelve.

Luke 22:3

And Matthew tells what happened once Jesus was condemned:

Then Judas, who betrayed him, when he saw that Jesus was condemned, felt remorse, and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, “I have sinned in that I betrayed innocent blood.” But they said, “What is that to us? You see to it.” He threw down the pieces of silver in the sanctuary and departed. Then he went away and hanged himself.

Matthew 27:3-5

How Third Day tells it

Third Day is a novel. In the novel he goes by Yeshua, the name his family would have called him. In chapter ten, “The Basket,” Yeshua spends a day in the hills with a boy. Judas, the company’s treasurer, goes alone through the north gate to the house of Caiaphas. He sets the purse on the table and says what he holds against his teacher.

“He refuses every means by which the work can survive him. He keeps no guard. He names no one after him. He takes the same three up every mountain.”

He asks that no harm come to Yeshua before the council, a seat among the rulers afterward, and a reward. In chapter eleven he hands the whole purse to another man so the company can still eat. In chapter seventeen, “The Governor,” he is paid thirty pieces of silver, tells the council he gave them an innocent man, and throws the coins across their floor.